Who Should Be Added to the Vintners Hall of Fame in 2012?

Yes, it's that time of year again, when a few writers, historians, journalists, and winemakers and yours truly (the token blogger?) get together to discuss who should go on the ballot for the next class of inductees to the California Vintners Hall of Fame. I've been a member of the nominating committee for several years, and will be again this year, along with Mike Dunne, Dr. Carol Meredith, Andy Beckstoffer, Randall Grahm, Gerald Asher, Daryl Corti, Sara Schneider, Charles Sullivan, Charles Henning, Paul Wagner, Warren Winiarski, and our chairman, W. Blake Gray.

I wrote about the process and the Hall last year and was quite surprised at the amount of interest there was among my readers. Given the significant number of suggestions that I received based on that blog post, all of whom I brought to the nominating committee for consideration, I thought I'd do the same again this year.

The Vintner's Hall of Fame is now in its sixth year, and we've got a pretty solid list of inductees, to which we added last year the following members:

As the nominating committee we try hard to make sure that we are inducting people into the "Pioneer" category (those that have been deceased for more than 10 years) and also to make sure we have living members as well (who get to appreciate the honor a bit more directly).

So the question is, who should be added to the ballot (which is sent to several hundred wine writers around the country) this year? I'd like your suggestions, with a quick caveat: please tell me WHY you think they ought to be on the ballot. Just throwing out a list of names is pretty useless. We've got a list hundreds long. What we need are clear justifications why someone deserves to be given more consideration than someone else.

In short, and this is the question that we are putting to ourselves as nominating committee this year, who is the one person not in the Vintners Hall of Fame who most deserves to be?

Yes, it's that time of year again, when a few writers, historians, journalists, and winemakers and yours truly (the token blogger?) get together to discuss who should go on the ballot for the next class of inductees to the California Vintners Hall of Fame. I've been a member of the nominating committee for several years, and will be again this year, along with Mike Dunne, Dr. Carol Meredith, Andy Beckstoffer, Randall Grahm, Gerald Asher, Daryl Corti, Sara Schneider, Charles Sullivan, Charles Henning, Paul Wagner, Warren Winiarski, and our chairman, W. Blake Gray.\n\nI wrote about the process and the Hall last year and was quite surprised at the amount of interest there was among my readers. Given the significant number of suggestions that I received based on that blog post, all of whom I brought to the nominating committee for consideration, I thought I'd do the same again this year.\n\nThe Vintner's Hall of Fame is now in its sixth year, and we've got a pretty solid list of inductees, to which we added last year the following members:\n\nDick Graff\nJoel Peterson\nAugust Sebastiani\nVernon Singleton\nBob Trinchero\n\nThey joined the following existing members of the Hall (whose names are followed by the year they were inducted):\n\nLeon Adams, 2010\nGerald Asher, 2009\nMaynard Amerine, PhD, 2007\nAndy Beckstoffer, 2010\nFrederick and Jacob Beringer, 2009\nBrother Timothy, 2007\nAl Brounstein, 2010\nDarrell Corti, 2008\nJohn Daniel, Jr. 2008\nJack and Jamie Davies, 2009\nGeorges de Latour, 2007\nPaul Draper, 2008\nErnest and Julio Gallo, 2008\nRandall Grahm, 2010\nMiljenko \"Mike\" Grgich, 2008\nAgoston Haraszthy, 2007\nJess Stonestreet Jackson, 2009\nCharles Krug, 2007\nZelma Long, 2010\nLouis P. Martini, 2008\nCarol Meredith, PhD, 2009\nJustin Meyer, 2009\nRobert Mondavi, 2007\nGustave Niebaum, 2007\nHarold Olmo, PhD, 2007\nAndrè Tchelistcheff, 2007\nCarl Heinrich Wente, 2008\nWarren Winiarski, 2009\n\nAs the nominating committee we try hard to make sure that we are inducting people into the \"Pioneer\" category (those that have been deceased for more than 10 years) and also to make sure we have living members as well (who get to appreciate the honor a bit more directly).\n\nSo the question is, who should be added to the ballot (which is sent to several hundred wine writers around the country) this year? I'd like your suggestions, with a quick caveat: please tell me WHY you think they ought to be on the ballot. Just throwing out a list of names is pretty useless. We've got a list hundreds long. What we need are clear justifications why someone deserves to be given more consideration than someone else.\n\nIn short, and this is the question that we are putting to ourselves as nominating committee this year, who is the one person not in the Vintners Hall of Fame who most deserves to be?\n\nI look forward to your suggestions and your justifications.